Marathon suspect: Statements should be thrown out

Thursday May 8, 2014 7:30 AM

BOSTON (AP) — Lawyers for Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (joh-HAHR' tsahr-NEYE'-ehv) have filed a series of pretrial motions asking a judge to dismiss some evidence and seeking to have the death penalty declared unconstitutional.

In one motion filed Wednesday, defense attorneys asked a judge to bar prosecutors from arguing that his alleged decision to target the marathon is a factor a jury should consider when weighing whether he should be sentenced to death.

His lawyers filed a separate motion asking the judge to declare the federal death penalty unconstitutional.

Lawyers asked that statements he made to authorities at a hospital after his arrest be thrown out because he was improperly questioned without a lawyer.

They also sought to have evidence collected during searches of his Cambridge home and University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth dorm room dismissed.

Federal officials' review of the fatal shooting of a 22-year-old black man by a white police officer as he carried an air rifle in an Ohio Wal-Mart remains unfinished as his relatives plan a rally and vigil to mark one year since his death. Get the story.

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